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Joaquin Bustelo wrote: > > Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky ALL accepted and applied this idea that > voting in bourgeois elections is a tactical question. Lenin thought that > increasing the number of representatives of the workers party in the Duma > justified making an alliance with bourgeois parties against the more > reactionary parties, even though it also meant voting for those bourgeois > parties. From my response to Joaquin on 11/23/2008 around this issue: Joaquin wrote: >As for my crying "gotcha," this is not a high school debate team, this is, I >hope a serious discussion among people who are serious about Marxism. That's >why I went to the trouble of quoting extensively Lenin's multifaceted >approach to tactics in the 1912 Duma elections showing how and where making >a bloc with certain bourgeois forces (normally with the bourgeois democrats, >but ALSO in specific, concrete tactical cases, also with the liberals, the >Cadets) fit into Lenin's overall approach of promoting the independence of >the working class and the workers party. Fortunately, we have MIA as a resource for comrades to decide for themselves whether Lenin occasionally considered forming blocs with the Cadets, unlike the differences we had over Trotsky and Black Democrats which revolved around material that is not online. Just go to http://www.marxists.org/admin/search/index.htm and enter "Lenin" in the archive to be searched, and "Cadet" and "bloc" in the 'With all the words' field. You will get 56 hits. Here's some excerpts from the 3 articles right at the top in relevance and allow Lenin to speak for himself. On the rest of Joaquin's arguments, I will not reply to them since I see no point in wasting bandwidth in answering arguments that have so little traction on Marxmail. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1912/mar/29.htm The Marxists are waging a fight against Cadets of all shades, basing themselves on the materialist theory of politics, explaining the class interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, which impel it towards a liberal-monarchist programme, towards a rapprochement with the Progressists and "Left" Octobrists. Our response, therefore, will not be to appeal to Cadet "reason", to Cadet "memory", or to Cadet "principles", but to explain to the people why the liberals are becoming counter-revolutionaries and are breaking with democrats. We shall not exclaim: Will the Cadets listen to reason at last, will they recall their programme? We shall say: Will the democrats realise, at last, what a deep gulf separates them from the counter-revolutionary liberalsthe Cadets? Will those whose economic interests do not fetter them to the landowning nobility, or to the soft jobs and revenues of the bureaucracy, the bar, etc., realise that, if the people's freedom is really dear to them, they must join the working-class democratic movement against the Rights and against the Constitutional Democratic Party? http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/jan/25d.htm The revolutionary Social-Democrats say to all democrats among the urban and rural poor, only in alliance with the proletariat, only by throwing off the tutelage of the Cadets, only in a determined and consistent struggle against the autocracy will you find salvation. If you are mature enough for this, you will follow the proletariat. If not, you will remain under the tutelage of the Cadets; and, whatever the upshot of the election campaign, whatever the result of your bargaining among yourselves for seats, the proletariat will continue to pursue its own class revolutionary road. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/jan/25.htm The underlying cause of this dissension within the petty-bourgeois bloc is quite clear. There is a danger of a rupture with the Cadets. The Popular Socialists and the Mensheviks are, perhaps, not averse to accepting two seats from the Cadets and to betraying the rest of the petty bourgeoisie, just as the Mensheviks betrayed the proletariat! That's what's behind it all! From rung to rung downwards. Betray the workers' party and join the petty-bourgeois bloc. Betray the petty-bourgeois democratic bloc and join the Cadets! Go, and good riddance! ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
